Christy stepped in as CEO from 2010 to 2012 with an aggressive strategic plan including a restructuring of the company’s business model that would allow for a wider reach. Within a year, sales doubled. Under Christy’s leadership, sales are on-track to double for the third year in a row.
Christy is a yoga-practicing, raw-food eating, creative force with a resume replete with hard-core accolades from the nation’s big-eight accounting firms to the ski resorts of Breckenridge and Telluride Colorado. Above all else, Christy is a visionary who knows how to enact a plan.
Cooke began her career in marketing and communications in two of the nation’s largest public accounting firms, Touche Ross and Price Waterhouse. Pioneering “Practice Development” for the professional services industry during the mid-eighties had many challenges. Christy enjoyed tackling the nuances of marketing and public relations for both businesses that were cautious about promoting themselves. Having managed several major creative campaigns, the work was challenging and thought provoking, yet the lack of access to nature left a void in her professional fulfillment.
Enter Telluride, Colorado, when reorganized career goals including the additional pursuits of life balancing skiing, whitewater rafting and yoga instructing came into play. It was through a mutual friend that Christy met Richard Cooke in Moab, Utah. Teaming up with Richard in 1998 she began building the Freenotes business and the triumvirate of mind, body and creative spirit was complete.
As she learned more about the music, the tools and the vast potential of what she and Richard were creating, her vision for Freenotes came into focus.
The company is moving beyond the playground in 2012 and aggressively pursuing outdoor installations in a variety of semi-protected institutionalized settings for businesses, municipalities and the private sectors.
The ultimate legacy for Freenotes is much bigger than high sales volume. Inspired by the ease with which everyone can make beautiful music, Christy envisions a simplified way to bring music back to arts education. Underway is the development of music education materials that will ultimately lead to a Freenotes School of Music centered on improvisation and supported by instruments that everyone can play.
